Summer Fall
by Lucky Chan
Summary: Prequel to The Mission. Sasuke realizes that he can never escape from all the things he did in the past, for now even his daughter is haunted by his own demons. Mentions of Sasuke x Sakura.


**Summer Fall**

_**Author's Notes: **__Written for the LJ community, 31 days, for the __April 21__st__ theme, "The rain my drink". Set in the future, in the universe of my other fic, The Mission. I like making Sasuke _suffer_. No, really._

He didn't know why, but there was just something about the eternal summer of Konoha that he absolutely despised. It was one of the reasons why he insisted on getting thick, heavy curtains for their house, the old family home his clan had once lived in. _But it would shut the sunlight out, _she argued, which, he argued back, was the entire point.

But he rarely argued with her, now. When they were twelve he would have said something scathing just to have the last word: _you're annoying, _maybe, or _shut up_. Now he could not say something like this to her, not that it would offend her—she always took his coldness with tireless cheer—but because it made _him_ feel bad now, and feel something akin, at least, to guilt.

In the end, she agreed, and now no matter how brightly the sun shone over the village, their house remained shrouded in darkness. _Cold as death_, she teased. None of their friends and colleagues ever wanted to stay for long inside their house, even Naruto, who kept tripping over their furniture, and once, even broke the antique flower vase that Sakura had been saving up for months. Naruto's visits certainly became rarer after _that_—but he claimed it was because he had more work to do now, being Hokage and all.

Sasuke did not mind; he liked the solitude. But after a while, even this peace only made him more restless. Mornings were still too bright, too blinding. He still raised his hand to shade his eyes, without thinking, whenever he stepped out from their house.

That day, he returned from a mission to find her bent over their sleeping daughter, singing her a lullaby, long unsung, what with their daughter now eleven years old. She lifted her eyes when he entered, and smiled. "Okaeri nasai," she said.

He nodded shortly, but managed a small smile for her benefit. Old habits were hard to hard to break, but still he tried.

"Shizuka came home crying," she murmured, looking at her child.

Sasuke looked up, and grasped her wrist. "Why?"

"She wouldn't tell me why." Sakura did not withdraw her arm, and instead, put one hand over his own. "Don't worry, Sasuke. Naruto instructed the whole village that not one word should be said about—well, we shouldn't talk about it, then, either." She glanced at her daughter, but the child did not stir.

"Sandaime did the same thing for Naruto," Sasuke said coldly, "But to no avail."

Sakura looked down at this, and bit her lip. She tried a laugh, just to ease their mood. "I never really treated Naruto very well, before," she said, "Remember that first day with Kakashi-sensei? No one ever did think well of him before, except Hinata and Iruka-sensei, I suppose. And now he's Hokage. _That_ certainly made people reconsider their behavior towards him. Even I feel ashamed whenever I remember how I acted." She ventured a smile, tentative, her eyes fixed on his face.

"Everything turns out all right, in the end," she said.

Sasuke was silent for a long time, his eyes fixed on his sleeping daughter. His black eyes remained hard as stone, his lips pressed thinly together.

"Everything turns out all right," he said softly, turning away, "For people who deserve it." He laughed, a hollow laugh. "The only thing Naruto ought to be punished for is stupidity."

Sakura walked towards him, but he moved away, heading over to the window.

"These curtains have now worn thin," he said, grasping one end of the curtain, "They let too much light in now. We have to replace them."

"Sasuke," Sakura whispered. There was sadness in her voice, and anger, but the anger was not directed at him, not entirely.

He walked over to the door, and slid it open.

"It's going to rain tonight," she said lightly. She never asked him anymore where he was going, or why; she spoke only to wish him luck, or to warn him of trivial dangers. "Shikamaru remarked on how some dark clouds loomed somewhere to the west. I was surprised, too. It rains so rarely in this village now."

He shrugged, and closed the door.

He did not walk very far, and lingered only a few feet from the door, staring at the sky. The stars and the moon were not visible; above him loomed pure darkness. A few drops of rain fell on his cheek, and trickled down to his lips.

As the rain steadily increased to a downpour, he suddenly thought, _this is what I deserve_. He thought of the other children, imagining what they would have said to his daughter, to make her come home crying, when she had never shown him any sign of weakness before. _I heard my parents talking, _they probably said, _and we all know this now: your father betrayed the village_. _Traitor_, they probably chanted, _traitor_.

He was drenched now, his clothes soaked, the fibers sticking uncomfortably to his skin. He kept standing.

The one thing he really despised about the bright summer days of Konoha were how they were supposed to connote cheerfulness, and how they were supposed to complement his present life: peaceful, ordinary, perfect. He supposed he was happy, but he did not like this eternal summer. It made him feel uneasy, as if all this was surreal. This rain was real enough, he felt it now as he stood, drinking it in, letting it wash over him completely, letting himself drown.

The door slid open, and her footsteps came over to him.

"Sasuke," she said again, holding an umbrella over his head. She did not sound angry now, only tired.

He brushed the umbrella away, but she held it firmly over his head.

"The past doesn't matter," she said, her eyes flashing. "Everyone deserves some comfort. Even you, Sasuke." She wrapped an arm around him, and pulled him towards home. "Especially you."

"You really are," he said, a smile suddenly breaking on his face, "A—"

"Adorable," Sakura finished. "I don't want to go reliving _that_ moment yet, Sasuke." He laughed at this, and even allowed himself to be lead.

Back inside, he carried his daughter towards her futon. She murmured in her sleep, and he pulled the blanket over her, pushing her black hair away from her still closed eyes.

"When I find out what happened," he began, gritting his teeth together, "I'm going straight for those children who did this."

"But what about their parents?" she asked wryly.

"That I'll leave for you to handle."

She shook her head, and suddenly covered her mouth with one hand. She kissed her daughter on the cheek, and exited the room quietly. She burst out laughing out in the hallway.

He smirked, and followed his wife.


End file.
